


The Bright Mirror and the Dark

by Yami Bakura (Siyah_Kedi)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Dark!Harry, Hogwarts Eighth Year, M/M, Mirrors, Pseudo-Slytherin!Harry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-05-28
Updated: 2012-05-28
Packaged: 2017-11-06 04:54:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/414907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siyah_Kedi/pseuds/Yami%20Bakura
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry and Co. are back for their so-called eighth year of Hogwarts to finish out their N.E.W.T.S. and Harry has withdrawn from everyone.  Hermione and Ron are in it together, Ginny's broken up with him, and Theodore Nott is his new Potions partner.  </p><p>When everything seems to be at it's worst, Harry finds a mirror, similar to the mirror of Erised but instead of his deepest desires, this mirror shows him the darkness in his own heart - and then makes it a reality.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Bright Mirror and the Dark

**Author's Note:**

> Bwahahaha~ This is my first new HP fic in about three or so years. I'm in the process of rereading all the available literature and I'm OD'ing on fanfics in the meantime, so apologies for any mistakes. Un-beta'd because I have no friends in the fandom any more, so if you see mistakes please point them out to me.

 

 

Looking around himself at the assembled students in the Great Hall, Harry was struck by the immense toll the war had taken on the student population.  Less than half of the standard number of students; some had fled with their families.  Some were in Azkaban.  And some were dead.

 

It hardly felt like a victory, and Harry felt numb inside as he stared into the shell-shocked eyes of his fellow eighth years.  Some small thrill of pride welled up in his chest when the new first years were lead through the doors of the Great Hall, gaping around themselves with a wonder Harry still felt when he remembered to look at the school that had become home.  There were fewer of them as well; less than fifty, Harry guessed after making a quick head count.  But enough to start a new term at Hogwarts, though some classes would be combined. 

 

Nothing would ever be the same, but it was enough for a new beginning. 

 

-o0o-

 

After the welcoming feast, Harry ditched Ron and Hermione to catch up with the flash of white-blond hair he’d seen just ahead of him.  Wrapped up in themselves and their own burgeoning relationship, they didn’t even acknowledge his hastily mumbled excuse as he pushed his way through the milling crowd.

 

“Malfoy!”

 

Third years and above – those students who’d been at Hogwarts long enough to know how these sorts of confrontations usually ended – hustled out of the way, clearing a path between Harry and his intended target. 

 

For the first time in nearly a decade together, however, Harry’s mission wasn’t hex-first-ask-questions-never – it was something entirely different.

 

Malfoy stiffened his shoulders, clearly hesitating for a long moment before turning to face Harry, a grim expression on his face.  Grim, Harry noted, but not malicious or sneering.  Like he was preparing himself for a confrontation he didn’t feel up to having. 

 

Harry sympathised. 

 

“Yes, Potter?”  The tone, for Malfoy, was almost pleasant, if one discounted the too-wide eyes and the faint trembling at the corners of his mouth.  Harry glanced around and realised they had an unsubtle audience, the herd of students not even attempting to be subtle as they waited for the inevitable explosion.  The tense silence was palpable.

 

“I’d like to speak to you,” Harry blurted out, suddenly uncertain of himself. 

 

Malfoy spread his hands in a _what are you waiting for?_ gesture.  Harry glanced around again.

 

“Not here.  Do you have a moment?”

 

Blaise Zabini and Theodore Nott flanked Malfoy almost protectively; Zabini in particular glowered at Harry with undisguised menace.  For a moment, Harry was struck by how strange it was not to see Malfoy’s usual lurking goons, and then memory kicked him in the head with the force of a bludger.  Crabbe was dead in the fiendfyre, and Goyle had been sent to Azkaban for conspiring with dark wizards and bearing a Dark Mark.  Malfoy also bore the Mark, but Harry had spoken at his trial.  He owed it to the Malfoys, after all.  He didn’t owe Gregory Goyle anything, but he felt momentarily guilty.

 

 _You can’t save them all, Harry,_ Hermione kept reminding him. 

 

 _I should have been_ able _to, though._

 

Malfoy held up a restraining hand, and Zabini backed down.  “Very well.  What did you have in mind?”

 

“Um.”  He hadn’t thought that far ahead; it wasn’t meant to be a spectacle, he just needed to see Malfoy alone for a moment.  No one would ever leave him alone again, he realised with dismay, and his mind raced as he tried to consider the best – and quickest-to-reach – spot to have a private word. 

 

Malfoy’s lip curled at his hesitation, but Zabini seemed to understand Harry’s silent dilemma.

 

“All right you lot, clear out!  There’s obviously nothing to see here,” he bellowed, and the disgruntled students moved on.  Malfoy stepped closer, and Harry had to fight every instinct he had over whether or not to back away or draw his wand.  He stood his ground, waiting for Zabini and Nott to give them some space.  They obligingly backed up, but didn’t turn away.  Harry didn’t blame them, but he had no intention of starting a fight.

 

“Well?”  Malfoy’s cool drawl was unchanged.  For a moment, Harry was grateful that some things, at least, could remain the same. 

 

“I wanted to thank you,” he blurted out.  Malfoy blinked, startled into expressionlessness for a moment.  “I know it’s not exactly.  I didn’t,” he tried again, but the words – he’d had an entire speech prepared at one point, but it all seemed contrived and he’d chucked it – the words refused to come out of his mouth.  “I’m very sorry,” he mumbled.

 

“Articulate, aren’t we?  Just spit it out, Potter, some of us have things to do.”  

 

Harry was impressed all over again; for Malfoy, that was the height of restraint.  It seemed that no one had come out of the war unchanged.  “I’m sorry I don’t know what to say,” Harry tried again.  “I wanted to thank you for… not… at the Manor, I mean, when you lied.  Thank you.  And here.”  He pulled Malfoy’s hawthorn wand from his sleeve and presented it with ceremony.  “This is yours.  I wanted to thank you for that, too, but it doesn’t – I know you didn’t mean to give it to me,” he mumbled, feeling his face flame as Malfoy stared blankly.  “I’m sure you’ve got another one by now, and – but it’s yours, you should have it.”

 

Without a word, Malfoy reached out slowly and took the wand gingerly, as if he were afraid it would turn into a snake and bite him.  Golden sparks shot out of the tip when he wrapped his fingers around it as the wand welcomed its old master back.  “Thank you,” he said slowly. 

 

“It might be worth money by now,” Harry joked, trying to work past the lump of nervousness that had settled into his throat.  “That wand defeated Voldemort.”  As soon as the words were out, Harry wished he could stuff them back into his mouth; surely that was the _absolute worst thing_ he could have said, and now Malfoy was going to use the wand to kill him or hex him insensible or –

 

Malfoy’s lips twisted into a wry grin.  “Shall I have you autograph it as well, Potter?”

 

Behind him, Zabini cleared his throat.  Malfoy straightened up, the almost-pleasant expression dropping from his face so quickly it looked as though he’d replaced it with a mask.  “Thank you for returning it, Potter.”

 

As words failed him yet again, Harry just nodded.  Malfoy accepted the nod and turned to rejoin his friends.  Before they were too far away, Harry called out to him again.  “I don’t give out autographs to just anyone, Malfoy, you’d have to earn it!”

 

The Slytherin Trio turned in unison, the baffled expression on Malfoy’s face a distinct counterpoint to Nott’s dispassionate look and Zabini’s plain outrage.  Harry beat a hasty retreat before they could hex him after all.

 

-o0o-

 

Against all reasonable expectations – though not, to Harry’s mind, anything to whinge about – after the first week or so back at Hogwarts the majority of the students had settled back into a routine that _didn’t_ involve pestering Harry.  Most of them had gone to school with him before, and had become used to his presence.  They’d all gone through Quirrell and Lockheart and the basilisk petrifying people, Sirius’ escape from Azkaban and the resulting dementors, Cedric’s death and Voldemort’s return, Umbridge –

 

The more Harry thought about it, the more he realised that though he’d been at the center of everything that had happened over the years, the other students around him were probably inured to everything life could throw at them.  If anything ever surprised any of them ever again, Harry would be shocked. 

 

With the routine, however, came ennui.  Harry was bored out of his mind, and Ron and Hermione were too involved with themselves to notice him.  He tried not to let it bother him, but more and more it became obvious: their _trio_ was becoming a _duo_ and he was getting locked out of his own friendships.  Ginny tried to fill in the spaces, but Harry was getting sick of looking at her.  Things came to a head at dinner one night about a month after the start of the new term.

 

“I’d name my first boy after me granddad,” Seamus was saying.  “Mickey Finnegan, right?”

 

Hermione surfaced from the bubble of silence she and Ron seemed enveloped in.  “I’ve always been fond of the name Rose for a girl,” she said.  Harry looked around at them, and wondered what he’d want to name his children if he ever had them.  “What about you, Harry?”

 

“James and Lily,” Harry said automatically.  “Or Sirius, or Remus, or Albus.”  He was quiet for a few seconds, debating on whether or not to add the last name.  “Severus.  For remembrance.”

 

There was a moment of silence as everyone absorbed this and what it meant, and then Ginny broke it.

 

“Those are dreadful names,” she announced, nose wrinkled.  “Who’d want to be saddled with a name like Albus in this day and age?  Now Giddeon or Thaddeus, those are decent names.”

 

Harry tactfully kept his mouth shut, taking in her opinion without adding his own, but in retrospect he realised that this was the moment he knew for certain things would never work out between them.  They were too different. 

 

The next morning over breakfast, Ginny challenged him to tell her the names of her friends or her favourite quidditch team, and somehow it turned into a screaming row when he knew neither of the answers. 

 

“I had better things to do last year than wonder ‘Which quidditch team does she fancy,’ _Ginevra!_ ”

 

“You only like the Cannon’s because Ron does, _Harry!_   Because you were raised too stupid to know the back of your arse from a pile of hippogriff leavings!”

 

“You have no idea how I was raised, so just shut your mouth!”  He threw himself away from the table and stormed out of the Great Hall, oblivious to the stares of the bewildered students following him.  The next time he became aware of his surroundings, he was at the shore of the lake.  For a moment, heart-stopping terror that he’d not been paying attention and could have been attacked –

 

Then he realised he was being a tit; Voldemort was gone and his followers were in Azkaban or had fled the country.  The sudden spike of adrenalin had chased away his rage, however, and he sank to the ground feeling exhausted.  _Thank Merlin for Saturdays,_ he thought, staring out across the placidly lapping waves of the lake.  No classes to worry about, and no pitying stares from his friends or the teachers.  He felt at odds with himself; on one hand, he understood the need to return to Hogwarts to complete his education.  He wished he felt Hermione’s overwhelming _joy_ at books and learning, so that he could at least have something to look forward to, but it just felt like one more insurmountable task to be attained. 

 

Yet on the other hand, he didn’t know what he wanted to do.  Becoming an Auror no longer held the same appeal after a year spent in the wilderness, avoiding the dark wizards and culminating in the defeat of Voldemort.  His life was falling apart at the seams, and the harder he tried to hold onto it, the faster it unraveled. 

 

Harry spent the entire day beneath a tree, staring out across the lake and considering the options he had.  When he reached the point where simply crawling into a hole in the ground and vanishing began to seem like a viable option, he dragged himself back into the castle. 

 

-o0o-

 

Hermione greeted him at the portrait hole.  “Harry, where have you been?”  Her voice was shrill, and the expression on her face momentarily terrified him.

 

“Out,” he said tersely. 

 

“Out.”  Her flat repetition was almost dangerous.  “We were afraid something _terrible_ had happened to you, and all you have to say for yourself is that you were ‘out.’  _Harry James Potter,_ you–”

 

“Not now, Hermione,” Harry interrupted, holding up a hand to forestall the intended lecture.  “I’m a big boy now and I don’t need you taking after me like my mum.”  He was being unforgivably rude, he knew, but Hermione had barely said three things to him all week.  She spent all her free time snogging Ron, or talking to him, or doing her homework in the library with Ron, and he was just tired of it. 

 

 _Feel free to ignore Harry so long as he’s around, but heaven forbid he go off and do something on his own for once!_   Even in his own mind the words were bitter, and he spared half a thought to wonder at his own feelings. 

 

“ _Harry,_ ” Hermione tried again, her voice becoming conciliatory.  Harry heard the thoughts behind it as clearly as if he were using legilimency against her.  _Now there’s a thought.  ‘Oh, Ron, kiss me harder!  Find my tonsils, I haven’t had them out yet.’_

 

“Just leave me alone, Hermione.  You’ve gotten good at that recently.”  Abruptly, he turned on his heel and strode down the hallway, away from the Fat Lady and Gryffindor Tower.  It wasn’t until his feet took him to the seventh floor hallway that he realised he’d had an actual destination in mind. 

 

The Room of Requirement.  He hadn’t been in it since Crabbe set off the Fiendfyre, and he didn’t even know if it would still be functional, or if the entire thing would just be a burned out husk.  He took a deep breath and decided to give it a try.  He wouldn’t be going back to the Tower any time soon, but he still needed somewhere to sleep. 

 

 _I need a sort of bedroom,_ he thought, pacing.  _Somewhere to stay by myself for a couple of days._

 

An unfamiliar doorway rippled into being on the blank wall, and Harry gratefully pushed it open.  A luxurious suite greeted him on the other side, a roaring fireplace illuminating the small settee and writing desk in one corner.  At the far end he saw a bed much larger than the singles they all slept on in the dorms, though it still had a canopy and curtains to draw closed.  To his utmost surprise, they weren’t a familiar shade of Gryffindor red, but silver and green and thoroughly _Slytherin._ The carpet beneath his feet was plush and black, decorated with little silver squiggles that upon further examination, Harry realised were little snakes.  It looked quite similar to Sirius’ old bedroom at Number Twelve. 

 

Wrapped in the comfort of the familiar, Harry opened the wardrobe and was pleased to note that all of his things from the Tower had been relocated – including his invisibility cloak and the map.  He changed into his pyjamas and climbed into the large bed, luxuriating in the chance to really sprawl for the first time in his life. 

-o0o- TBC -o0o-


End file.
